Hebrews 11:32-40, Psalm 31:20-24, Mark 5:1-20

ISAIAH 22:20-23

The role of St. Peter in the Church Jesus founded on the Apostles has its echo in these verses from Isaiah and finds its fulfillment when Jesus gives him the Keys of the Kingdom.

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS:

Hebrews 11:32-40, Psalm 31:20-24, Mark 5:1-20

http://www.bibleclaret.org/bibles/english.htm

Hebrews 11:32-40

My Beloved, there is no earthly reward that can outweigh the eternal reward we will receive in heaven.

Wonderful favors and blessings have been granted to Your anointed saints on earth. Great powers and mighty wonders have been performed by You through their intercession but many of these saints were persecuted, maligned and made to suffer greatly by the world and often by their own.

Those who accept to suffer gladly in this world for Your sake can expect the suffering to be tremendous, for evil knows how to persecute cruelly and to inflict pain and agony both physical and mental.  Evil can sink to the very depths of hell which seems to go down to infinity just as heaven reaches up to infinity.  But You my Beloved can give the grace and strength which makes it possible to endure through the pain and humiliation making it possible to witness powerfully to the beauty and splendour of Incarnate Truth.

Psalm 31:20-24

My Beloved You are the Eternal Word who reposes in the Love of the Father, in like manner we who belong to You repose in You.

I hide in You.  I take refuge in You.  I shelter in Your love.  I glory in my nothingness for then You can be everything to me.

I love You. I am aware that it is a small, feeble, flickering love and that is why I unite it with Your own, then I can love gloriously with Your love not my own.  You have been my strength, my fortress, my deliverer,.  You have calmed my fears, You have wiped away my tears.  You have come to me even before I opened my mouth to call Your Name.  I love You my Beloved, I love You.

Mark 5:1-20

My Beloved Jesus, unbridled evil cannot be restrained.  It is a terrifying force of evil that destroys everything in its path leaving terror in its wake.  Evil resides in death and decay.  It loathes anything good, pure and innocent and seeks with all its strength to erase it.  Most of all evil hates, loathes and despises itself.  Nothing short of Goodness and Love Incarnate can overpower it and render it impotent.

The people from the region of the Gerasenes in today's Gospel passage rejected You and asked You to leave.  They did not understand what You had done in setting that poor, demented, deranged man whose spirit was inflicted and invaded by a legion demons.  You set that poor, pitiful man free and instead of rejoicing in what You had done for him and inviting You to stay with them, they preferred to live as they always had.  They wanted no divine revelation, no epiphany.  But You still cared for them and did not leave them bereft.  You did not turn away from them in petulance as we often do when we are rejected. You entrusted the man You had healed with a mission.  He desired to follow You but You  had other plans for him. You wanted him to pursue another calling, that of a missionary.  You asked him to go back to his home and his people and testify to the marvellous thing that God had done for him.

This is our mission too.  We too must tell our own personal conversion story of how wonderfully good You have been and continut to be to us. How You have blessed us always, most especially in the midst of our sorrow, heartbreak and pain.  I love You.